A few years ago, in one of the most fascinating and disturbing experiments in behavioral psychology, Stanley Milgram of Yale University tested 40 subjects from all walks of life for their willingness to obey instructions given by a 'leader' in a situation in which the subjects might feel a personal distaste for the actions they were called upon to perform. Specifically, Milgram told each volunteer 'teacher-subject' that the experiment was in the noble cause of education, and was designed to test whether or not punishing pupils for their mistakes would have a positive effect on the pupils' ability to learn.

B段：

Milgram's experimental set-up involved placing the teacher-subject before a panel of thirty switches with labels ranging from '15 volts of electricity (slight shock)' to '450 volts (danger - severe shock)' in steps of 15 volts each. The teacher-subject was told that whenever the pupil gave the wrong answer to a question, a shock was to be administered, beginning at the lowest level and increasing in severity with each successive wrong answer. The supposed 'pupil' was in reality an actor hired by Milgram to simulate receiving the shocks by emitting a spectrum of groans, screams and writings together with an assortment of statements and expletives denouncing both the experiment and the experimenter. Milgram told the teacher-subject to ignore the reactions of the pupil, and to administer whatever level of shock was called for, as per the rule governing the experimental situation of the moment.

C段：

As the experiment unfolded, the pupil would deliberately give the wrong answers to questions posed by the teacher, thereby bringing on various electrical punishments, even up to the danger level of 300 volts and beyond. Many of the teacher-subjects balked at administering the higher levels of punishment, and turned to Milgram with questioning looks and/or complaints about continuing the experiment. In these situations, Milgram calmly explained that the teacher-subject was to ignore the pupil's cries for mercy and carry on with the experiment. If the subject was still reluctant to proceed, Milgram said that it was important for the sake of the experiment that the procedure be followed through to the end. His final argument was, 'You have no other choice. You must go on.' What Milgram was trying to discover was the number of teacher-subjects who would be willing to administer the highest levels of shock, even in the face of strong personal and moral revulsion against the rules and conditions of the experiment.

D段：

Prior to carrying out the experiment, Milgram explained his idea to a group of 39 psychiatrists and asked them to predict the average percentage of people in an ordinary population who would be willing to administer the highest shock level of 450 volts. The overwhelming consensus was that virtually all the teacher-subjects would refuse to obey the experimenter. They psychiatrists felt that 'most subjects would not go beyond 150 volts' and they further anticipated that only four per cent would go up to 300 volts. Furthermore, they thought that only a lunatic fringe of about one in 1,000 would give the highest shock of 450 volts.

E段：

What were the actual results? Well, over 60 per cent of the teacher-subjects continued to obey Milgram up to the 450-volt limit! In repetitions of the experiment in other countries, the percentage of obedient teacher-subjects was even higher, reaching 85 per cent in one country. How can we possible account for this vast discrepancy between what calm, rational, knowledgeable people predict in the comfort of their study and what pressured, flustered, but cooperative 'teachers' actually do in the laboratory of real life?

F段：

One's first inclination might be to argue that there must be some sort of built-in animal aggression instinct that was activated by the experimental, and the Milgram's teacher-subjects were just following a genetic need to discharge this pent-up primal urge onto the pupil by administering the electrical shock. A modern hard-core social-biologist might even go so far as to claim that this aggressive instinct evolved as an advantageous trait, having been of survival value to our ancestors in their struggle against the hardships of life on the plains and in the caves, ultimately finding its way into our genetic make-up as a remnant of our ancient animal ways.

G段：

An alternative to this notion of genetic programming is to see the teacher-subjects' actions as a result of the social environment under which the experiment was carried out. As Milgram himself pointed out, 'Most subjects in the experiment see their behavior in a larger context that is benevolent and useful to society - the pursuit of scientific truth. The psychological laboratory has a strong claim to legitimacy and evokes trust and confidence in those who perform. there. An action such as shocking a victim, which in isolation appears evil, acquires a completely different meaning when placed in this setting'.

H段：

Thus, in this explanation the subject merges his unique personality and personal and moral code with that of larger institutional structures, surrendering individual properties like loyalty, self-sacrifice and discipline to the service of malevolent systems of authority.

I段：

Here we have two radically different explanations for why so many teacher-subjects were willing to forgot their sense of personal responsibility for the sake of an institutional authority figure. The problem for biologists, psychologists and anthropologists is to sort out which of these two polar explanations is more plausible. This, in essence, is the problem of modern sociobiology - to discover the degree to which hard-wired genetic programming dictates, or at least strongly biases, the interaction of animals and humans with their environment, that is, their behavior. Put another way, sociobiology is concerned with elucidating the biological basis of all behavior.

首段主要讲的是Stanley Milgram做实验的目的。“tested 40 subjects from all walks of life for their willingness to obey instructions given by a 'leader' in a situation in which the subjects might feel a personal distaste for the actions they were called upon to perform”，测试实验主题对领导者的要求的配合度。也就是笔者在前文提到的实验目的。(可以做选择题的第一题以及判断题的第一题)

第四段的首句涉及预测结果，Prior to carrying out the experiment, Milgram explained his idea to a group of 39 psychiatrists and asked them to predict the average percentage of people in an ordinary population who would be willing to administer the highest shock level of 450 volts. 预测的是会按电击到四百五十伏的人数。(可以做选择题的最后一题)

按照逻辑来看，接下来我们应该可以预测的内容是实验真正的结果。精读第五段的首句我们不难发现，内容确实是这个。“what are the actual results?”

那么按照文章发展的逻辑来看，接下来的内容应该是考虑出现实验结论的原因，“One's first inclination might be to argue that there must be some sort of built-in animal aggression instinct that was activated by the experimental, and the Milgram's teacher-subjects were just following a genetic need to discharge this pent-up primal urge onto the pupil by administering the electrical shock.”“An alternative to this notion of genetic programming is to see the teacher-subjects' actions as a result of the social environment under which the experiment was carried out.”一是基因请款导致，二十实验者认为自己是在追寻科学真理。

最后是文章的总结，引入social biology的问题。

总结来看，文章的脉络如下：

实验前 包括1. Introduction ( 即点出实验目的—— The aim of this experiment , 或 The explanation for the experiment )。实验前除了对实验目的做出解释外，还有就是2. Background (即对和开展该实验有关的所有东西的介绍，例如实验器材，实验人员，知识背景，身份，实验的架构，历经时间等等)

实验中 就是实验的开始阶段 Findings 的过程，包括实验的 具体操作过程 和实验中 发现的事实或情况 。

实验后 包括 实验最终结果 ，或者最终结果阐述前插入一段 实验的预测结果 ，当然最终结果的后面还有可能插入对 实验结果的原因分析 。

文章的 最后一段 就是 对整个实验的 再次总结 以及对今后某个领域 提出新的课题 。

在理清楚文章脉络之后，这篇文章当中最难的段落细节匹配题，也就是笔者在前文讲过的这个阅读高分拦路虎也就没有那么难了。

14 a biological explanation of the teacher-subjects’ behavior

15 the explanation Milgram gave the teacher -subjects for the experiment